


what more is there? (a lovesong for all the girls that never needed one)

by kwritten



Category: Revolution (TV), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Aromantic, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Female-Centric, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 06:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4908865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: #127, For the two of us, home isn't a place, it's a person.<br/>Charlie and Raven move in together, despite their friend's misgivings. An aromantic love story for Millennials. (allusions to background raven/clarke, charlie/jason, charlie/connor)</p><p> </p><p>  <i>They’re too alike, is the problem. Running from too much of the same thing into the same thing. They like the same things, laugh at the same jokes, steal the same shitty food from the dorm cafeteria. It’ll get boring, it’ll get tough. Maybe they’ll both be down each other’s throats by the end of the week. Maybe not. Who said it had to be difficult to be any good?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	what more is there? (a lovesong for all the girls that never needed one)

_This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,_ is probably the one thing they’re not supposed to say to each other. 

The daughter of a whore, with the ghetto still weighing down her shoulders, a secret language that makes no sense, a mix of languages and metaphors that no one else can understand except the boys and girls from the street she walked down every day. 

The daughter of a scientist and an affair, with secrets pulling at her feet, a silence that travels from her lips to her eyes, a rolling of her hips that speaks of journeys no girl should take and instincts no girl should foster. 

They wrap around each other like a moth to flame. They’re gonna die and they know it, it’s gonna burn out, and that’s just the way it’s gotta be. 

 

*

 

“You gonna finish these?” Raven leans over Charlie’s plate and steals the last three french fries. This is either the moment when Charlie finally decides to love her or to hate her. These two things are so similar, it doesn’t actually matter in the end. 

“You wanna move in together,” she says instead, eyes fixed on the classified ads. The last bite of her burger is wedged in Raven’s cheek and she doesn’t say it as a question, because it’s not. 

Raven shrugs, swallows the burger, “It’ll save us on rent, I guess.”

And then she walks down the hallway to Clarke’s room, probably to finish fucking her, and Charlie circles a few places to take a look at later that week. Summer’s coming fast. 

Time to grow up or some shit. 

 

 

* 

 

 _This isn’t going to work,_ is probably the stupidest thing that everyone says to them. Like anyone else knows them as well as they know themselves. 

There’s too many people helping them move, for one, it gives everything away. Each one with a handful or two of better choices. He could love you, she could worship you, they could bathe you every night, he’d make you dinner with candlelight, she’d kick your ass at scrabble. 

They’re too alike, is the problem. Running from too much of the same thing into the same thing. They like the same things, laugh at the same jokes, steal the same shitty food from the dorm cafeteria. It’ll get boring, it’ll get tough. Maybe they’ll both be down each other’s throats by the end of the week. 

Maybe not. 

Who said it had to be difficult to be any good?

 

 

*

 

“Whatcha doing?” Charlie poked her head through Raven’s open door around two in the morning. Raven’s door was always open. She did not encourage visitors, didn’t have a bowl of candy on top of her fridge the way Charlie did, didn’t sit up perkily and answer with a smile the way Clarke did, never had time for a quick round of poker and whiskey the way Octavia did. She just sat on her bed, covered in textbooks, some funky indie band always playing on low from the laptop on her desk, and left the door open. Everyone found their way into Raven’s room at some point during the day. 

They said she was a good listener. 

“Studying,” which was so obvious, Raven looked up at her and smiled. 

“I’m bored,” Charlie flopped herself down on the ground and sighed heavily. 

“Call your boy toy.”

“Connor?”

Raven wrinkled her nose, “The one with the muscles. Give him a good romp and then send him over to me.”

Charlie laughed, “We could just cut out the middle man.”

Raven swung herself off her bed - ten years of gymnastics really didn’t do her any disservice, even if she was a good two years older than all the other girls in the dorms - and landed straddling Charlie’s waist. “You’ve got an hour,” she teased. 

Charlie took it. 

 

 

*

 

 _This isn’t the right kind of fairytale,_ is what all the books would say. If anyone ever wrote a book about them. But that would be kinda boring. 

All it would be is dirty dishes and piles of laundry and kisses in the shower and Netflix marathons on the weekend and unpaid bills in the corner and shitty, dead-end jobs and degrees hanging on the wall reminding them of the debt they’ll never really be rid of. 

No one’s gonna read that story, it’s no kind of fairytale. 

There’s no epic declaration of love in the rain, no painful quest, no fight to win the girl at the end, no pinning, no soundtrack spilling out emotion and pain. No cartoon characters with hearts circling over their heads. There’s no candlelight dinners or long walks in the park or heads on shoulders as they talk about the future. 

There’s just this: just leftovers from boxes on the cold floor of the kitchen; just a pie that didn’t really make it because homemade crust is harder than mom made it out to be; just someone curled up in bed at the end of the day with a kiss or a fuck or a cuddle or freezing toes or not; just a cat they name ‘Betty’ and inside jokes that no one gets and a smile at the end of the day. 

 

 

* 

 

“So like… okay… what would your _ideal first date_ be?” Clarke is a little bit drunk and she’s giggling so much she might fall over. 

Charlie regrets choosing “Truth” over Dare, but no one is daring anything interesting in this crowd anyway.

“OH! OH EM GEE!” Octavia scrambles up on her knees, “An old movie at that theatre on thirteenth, with the red velvet seats, and then ice cream down by the pier and then a kiss on the doorstep!”

“‘sss not your turn, O!” Clarke pushes her over belligerently. She fixes her blurry gaze on Charlie, “You.”

“I … I _hate_ dating. A perfect date for me would be me in my pj’s, sitting on my couch eating pizza, watching a shitty movie and laughing until my stomach hurt, and then just going to bed.”

“You can’t do that on a first date,” Octavia says pragmatically. 

“Sounds perfect to me,” Raven says from her bed, looking down at them with a bored expression. “And remind me again why you are always getting drunk on my floor.”

Octavia raises her hands over her head and smiles wide, “Because you have the _best_ floor!!!”

Charlie can’t help but smile back at her. She turns to Raven, “And she means it, too.”

“Okay, okay, okay. BUT!” Clarke looks damned pleased with herself, which is never a good sign. They need to start hiding the booze soon. “BUT! Under what circumstances would you sleep with a _total stranger_!?” Her eyes are so wide and shocked at her own brazenness, Charlie fights back a laugh. 

“Boredom,” Raven says, typing on her laptop but not looking up. 

“Horny,” Charlie says, lying back on the ground. 

“Pissed off.”

“Usual bootycall doesn’t show.”

“Aced an exam and am out dancing,” Charlie begins counting them off on her fingers. 

“Failed an exam and am out drinking to forget,” Raven laughs.

“‘Cause it’s fun?” Charlie turns her head to look at Raven, who winks at her. 

Octavia purses her lips, “Rebound. Definitely bad breakup, sitting at the bar drenched in my own tears, rebound one-night-stand.”

Clarke shakes her head, “Okay. BUT! Under what circumstances would you sleep with a _friend_?”

Raven looks straight at Charlie, “All of the above?”

“Definitely all of the above.”

Clarke frowns, “Even if you knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere?”

“Won’t that make things … like … totally weird?” Octavia flops over on her side. Charlie’s going to have to carry her back to her room again. 

“That’s their problem,” Raven says, eyes still on Charlie. “Now get your drunk asses out of my room, I’m going to bed.”

Octavia somersaults out of the room with a giggle, Clarke following at a crawl. Charlie shuts the door behind them and turns back to Raven. 

“I’m gonna stay.”

“You should ask the host.”

“Can I stay?”

Raven looks at her for a minute, eyes narrowed, “Sure, why not?”

 

*

 

 _This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,_ is probably the one thing they’re supposed to say to each other.

They should be worried that their hearts don’t pound for each other, that they don’t find themselves giggling obsessively over the other’s txts, that they don’t pick up cute things as gag gifts when they’re out, that they still (sometimes) pick up boys at the bar and don’t always want to share. 

They should fight, they should scream, they should aim to fix all the parts in them that are broken and aren’t looking to be healed. They should expose their scars, they should cry, they should forgive. 

How do you forgive another person for their faults? How do you ask someone to forget your sins? How do you play at being in love the way all the movies tell you to?

 

*

 

“Is this enough for you?” Raven asks one night, curled up in the corner with Betty and a library book. 

Charlie looks up from the Netflix queue and looks around, “Well, it’s home, isn’t it?”

Raven nods and turns back to her book. 

In a little while, she’ll join Charlie on the couch, press her cold toes against Charlie’s calves and they’ll bicker about the fact that she never wears socks, even when the heat in the building is out again and it’s snowing outside, and Charlie will rest her head against her shoulder and sigh and they’ll talk about meaningless things and they’ll never say _I love you with all of my heart_ and they’ll never whisper _You make me whole_ because those things aren’t necessarily true, and they wouldn’t have to say them even if they were.


End file.
